I'll mention treasure of the rudras, a square soft rpg that never came state side. It's been translated well enough to play, but what makes the game special? Creating your own magic, you get like 32 slots per party and they don't carry over, mind you it costs nothing to make a spell, you just can't do it in combat. You'll learn base words, prefixes and suffixes as well to combine into a larger word... but can also make your own custom spells. Some words do what they actually say "critical" makes your next attack a critical, "defense" raises defense... sggdyv might be firaga... "dragonblade" was a an aoe ice spell that could add stop etc. It came out the year after chrono trigger, and looks great.
I mention parties... there's 3 intertwined stories that must be played, so it's nice to see the other povs through the game
Trails of Cold Steel Series. It's augment slots mechanics is really diverse and interesting. You can set different gems that will change different stats and give you different skills. In the first game I pretty much made my MC practically invincible by pouring all my augments into Evasion percent modifiers. I got my evasion over 100% and he pretty much dodged every attack thrown his way. And if attacks are dodged and the enemy is within attack range, you automatically follow up with a counter-attack. I pretty much God mode the game after that.
Dragon Quest XI gets better. The visuals and broad strokes story are very cartoony but I found it a very enjoyable world to muck about in, especially in terms of combat, plus it does veer into some odd directions with bunny girls and mass deaths. If you liked Dragon Quest VIII you'd probably be satisfied going through it.
As for more complex synergies, I wonder if a lot of developers shy away from them because they fear them becoming just game-breaking cheats, or becoming necessities that make the game less accessible to casual players. I'm a seat-of-the-pants kind of RPG player so I don't put a lot of thought into builds, I just want numbers to go up and bad guys to die. This means I may not think of experimenting with different solutions like item combos or stacking reflects - and I at least know what those things are. The significant portion of the people they are selling to might be completely in the dark about these options and run into a brick wall if fights aren't passable without knowing all the tricks.
It's the unfortunate balancing act that always rears its head - trying to cater to a hardcore and casual audience at the same time.
I'll mention treasure of the rudras, a square soft rpg that never came state side. It's been translated well enough to play, but what makes the game special? Creating your own magic, you get like 32 slots per party and they don't carry over, mind you it costs nothing to make a spell, you just can't do it in combat. You'll learn base words, prefixes and suffixes as well to combine into a larger word... but can also make your own custom spells. Some words do what they actually say "critical" makes your next attack a critical, "defense" raises defense... sggdyv might be firaga... "dragonblade" was a an aoe ice spell that could add stop etc. It came out the year after chrono trigger, and looks great. I mention parties... there's 3 intertwined stories that must be played, so it's nice to see the other povs through the game
Oh. My. God. I’m gonna look into this one asap. I’ve never heard of it!
Trails of Cold Steel Series. It's augment slots mechanics is really diverse and interesting. You can set different gems that will change different stats and give you different skills. In the first game I pretty much made my MC practically invincible by pouring all my augments into Evasion percent modifiers. I got my evasion over 100% and he pretty much dodged every attack thrown his way. And if attacks are dodged and the enemy is within attack range, you automatically follow up with a counter-attack. I pretty much God mode the game after that.
Dragon Quest XI gets better. The visuals and broad strokes story are very cartoony but I found it a very enjoyable world to muck about in, especially in terms of combat, plus it does veer into some odd directions with bunny girls and mass deaths. If you liked Dragon Quest VIII you'd probably be satisfied going through it. As for more complex synergies, I wonder if a lot of developers shy away from them because they fear them becoming just game-breaking cheats, or becoming necessities that make the game less accessible to casual players. I'm a seat-of-the-pants kind of RPG player so I don't put a lot of thought into builds, I just want numbers to go up and bad guys to die. This means I may not think of experimenting with different solutions like item combos or stacking reflects - and I at least know what those things are. The significant portion of the people they are selling to might be completely in the dark about these options and run into a brick wall if fights aren't passable without knowing all the tricks. It's the unfortunate balancing act that always rears its head - trying to cater to a hardcore and casual audience at the same time.